The Canadian Press
TORONTO—The Toronto Raptors’ backcourt of Kyle Lowry and DeMar DeRozan was back working at full strength last night.
The result: a team-record 11th-straight victory at Air Canada Centre.
Lowry scored 32 points, while fellow all-star DeRozan chipped in with 31, as the Raptors beat the Utah Jazz 104-94 to add to their franchise-record home winning streak.
Lowry had sat out Sunday’s loss at Detroit while DeRozan had played through the ’flu two nights earlier in a win over Cleveland.
When the duo is firing on all cylinders, they’re “extremely dangerous,” noted DeRozan.
“Especially once we get going, it’s easier to get our teammates involved and get them going, as well,” he said.
“We can pick and choose who we want to attack a team from.
“It’s tough to defend a team like that when we get going like that,” DeRozan added.
Toronto had won 10 games in a row at home once before, but it was stretched over two seasons—eight games to close 2001-02, then the first two of the following season.
Terrence Ross added 11 points while Jonas Valanciunas finished with 10 points and eight rebounds for Toronto (40-19).
Gordon Hayward had 26 points to top the Jazz (28-32) in their fourth-straight loss.
Saskatoon-born Trey Lyles finished with six points in 25 minutes.
Lowry and DeRozan had averaged 48 points between them in the previous 10 home wins, and they were superb again last night.
DeRozan shot 11-for-15 on the night while Lowry was 13-for-20.
“For me and him, we try to take some of the attention that we get and make other guys get some open looks and get them going, and then we can get ourselves going a little bit,” Lowry explained.
“But us going together is just what we’re supposed to do.”
Playing their first of seven games in a row at Air Canada Centre, the Raptors were sluggish through the first half.
“Our give-a-crap level was low, it was very low,” coach Dwane Casey said.
But they parlayed a strong third quarter—outscoring the Jazz 33-25—into an 85-74 lead heading into the fourth.
The Jazz rallied down the stretch and when Hayward drained a three-pointer with 4:29 to go, it pulled Utah to within 94-90.
But Lowry responded with a pair of baskets, then DeRozan’s fast-break jump shot with 1:27 left put Toronto up by eight points in front of a capacity crowd of 19,800.
Lowry’s running lay-up with 59 seconds remaining put Toronto up by 10 and put the game out of reach.
“We’ve got to get our mojo going a little bit harder—cuts, passes, screens, everything was dictated by Utah in the first half,” Casey noted.
“They did a good job of dictating whatever they wanted to do to us on both ends of the floor.
“That was the message at halftime,” he added.
Casey had kind words for Lucas Nogueira, who provided a spark off the bench with four rebounds and a huge dunk in just four-and-a-half minutes.
“I talked to him [Nogueira] at shoot-around this morning, just be ready. . . .
“That’s his gift, he came in and played,” Casey lauded.
“There’s going to be times when we mix in some of the young guys,” he noted.
“I don’t know when . . . they’ve just got to be ready.”
Elsewhere in the NBA, Washington beat Minnesota 104-98, Charlotte dumped Philadelphia 119-99, Orlando downed Chicago 102-89, Boston bounced Portland 116-93, and Indiana trimmed Milwaukee 104-99.
San Antonio beat Detroit 97-81, Memphis downed Sacramento 104-98, Houston topped New Orleans 100-95, Denver dumped the L.A. Lakers 117-107, and the L.A. Clippers shaded Oklahoma City 103-98.
